Love in a Time of Loneliness: Three Essays on Drives and Desires

Rating:
Summary: Loneliness in a time when (sexual) enjoyment is prescribed
Review: Ask yourself the following question: What is the difference between desire and drive? Whereas the question can be simply asked, it demands an answer that is enormously complex as it forces us to consider such difficult issues as femininity, masculinity, pleasure, death and, indeed, sex. To formulate an answer that is coherent is of crucial importance in order to clear up some of the complexities inherent in human relationships and existence. In the first essay of this book Verhaeghe deals with the problematic sexual relationship between people. Culture regulates desire and pleasure. But why does this regulation not lead to harmony? Science has not been able to provide an answer to this question. The question remains: What is the G-spot of human sexuality? Psychoanalysis provides an answer: the G-spot is a fundamental lack. It is not something that you can rub, stimulate, experiment with, control or predict. It is rather something you have to orientate yourself in relation to. In other words, each individual has to formulate his or her particular response to this lack in sexual harmony. Yet, increasingly more we are told how to do it, when to do it, how many times to do it. Science and (popular)culture prescribe sexual enjoyment, but we are more insecure than ever. Men and women are not the same nor are they complementary and this is precisely what modern science cannot handle because it implies that there is no general solution. In this first essay Verhaeghe makes a strong case for a lacanian perspective on these matters. The seond essay concerns a rereading of the Oedipal structure which is radically different than its traditional interpretation. But what can we gain from such a rereading? Verhaeghe suggests that we can now understand both the current evolution that takes place in society as well as the the different problems that we encounter within this evolution. Verhaeghe explores in this essay the historical evolution of the function of the father. This exploration includes a detailed and original reading of the Oedipus Rex play. Verhaeghe argues that the collective rules of the past that governed and determined the relationships between men and women have largely disappeared and consequently cleared the way for the prescription of pleasure. However, instead of an increase in sexual pleasure, we encounter a kind of impotence for pleasure and enjoyment. Despite all that, men and women are driven to something (in each other). What drives men and women is the subject of the last essay. The third essay deals with the dfficult concept of the drive. For me this is the crucial part of the book. This is the clearest and most comprehensive analysis of the drive (which includes the death-drive) I have read so far. On the basis of a Lacanian reading Verhaeghe has managed to clarify what Freud left in the dark concerning the death-drive. He also shows a way out of the impasse in which Freud's dualistic drive theory ended up. Moreover, in this essay Verhaeghe applies the drive theory to such clinical and cultural areas as crimes of passion, self-mutilation, addiction, sado-masochism, blues, jazz and rap. If the latter three areas come as a surprise read the book and you will indeed be taken by surprise. Not only should this essay give the reader an idea of the depth of the book's analysis, but also of the wide-ranging possibilities of an application of such an analysis. Verhaeghe has written this important book with a Freudian clarity and a lacanian rigour. The easy style makes the strict logic and complex structure, that characterise human relationships and the psyche, accessible for further exploration. More importantly, this book drives one to know more. What more can one desire from a book?

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: Psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe's recently published "Love in a Time of Loneliness" is one of those rare books that is able to do several things at once--and all of them well. At the most basic level, it provides an answer to all the "men are this, women are that" books on the market. Yes, men and women are different, but it is not a matter of coming from different planets. Verhaeghe gives a serious answer to the question of how the sexes relate--or fail to.

Second, Verhaeghe provides a wide-ranging and well-argued cultural analysis of a number of fascinating questions that the reader might never have thought to ask--simply because our "culture" is, by definition, that which we take for granted. Why do we tell mother-in-law jokes? Why was Abraham asked to sacrifice his son Isaac? Why is the divorce rate so high? What do we fall in love? The answers are in Verhaeghe's book.

Third, the book answers the question, "What is living and what is dead in psychoanalysis?" One hundred years after the publication of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams," what is still vital in psychoanalysis are the concepts of Freud and French analyst Jacques Lacan, upon which Verhaeghe draws. These concepts exert a explanatory power that goes far beyond facile "social science" answers to life's question. What is dead in psychoanalysis is a reading public familiar with those concepts--but Verhaeghe's book might help to change that. The book provides a kind of "introduction to psychoanalysis," but not the usual kind. Without jargon or tedious academic prose, Verhaeghe brings psychoanalytic concepts to life.

Fourth, "Love in a Time of Loneliness" provides the psychoanalytic and academic audience with a well-developed argument for the continuing relevance of psychoanalysis. The book challenges the traditional model of "applied psychoanalysis." Psychoanalysis is not something that can be "applied" to culture like icing on a cake. Psychoanlaysis takes on its importance at the structural level. Thus culture--in its many different flavors--is the "icing" that obscures the structural cake. Verhaeghe's book, with its structural emphasis, provides an example of the right way to do cultural studies.

Straightforward enough for laypeople, serious enough for scholars and psychoanalysts, "Love in a Time of Loneliness" is a book that should not be ignored. It deserves to be widely read and discussed.